


Ink-Stained Crown

by wynnebat



Category: Mushishi
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Arranged Marriage, M/M, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 22:10:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15180434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: The reason we have invited you to our banquet is that we have a favor to ask of you. Thirty-one years from now, your grandson will be born with a special gift: a power with the potential to change the world as you know it, for mushi and for humans alike. We would like you to watch over him until our king collects him and brings him into the royal family. Do this for us, and we will grant you powers of your own.





	Ink-Stained Crown

There’s something strange in Ginko’s expression as he says, “You should have a sip, too. You know, to celebrate.”

“Sure,” Shinra says, bringing the cup to his lips. It’s heavy in his hands, as though it were truly made by a potter rather than being a construction of ink and paper and Shinra’s unique ability.

His grandmother’s memories flow through him like the river of light itself, a scene of decades past opening around him. Barefoot and so young, Renzu walks spellbound in a line, cloaked mushi both ahead of her and behind her, the forest’s sounds fading under the thud of her heartbeat as she gets caught up in the mushi banquet. She’s a guest in the midst of a circle of identical white figures. They are without faces, without mouths, but they speak to her anyway, inviting her to drink.

“The reason we have invited you to our banquet is that we have a favor to ask of you,” says the figure directly across from her, its voice much deeper than she’d thought it would be. “Thirty-one years from now, your grandson will be born with a special gift: a power with the potential to change the world as you know it, for mushi and for humans alike. We would like you to watch over him until our king collects him and brings him into the royal family. Do this for us, and we will grant you powers of your own.”

Her questions aren’t answered, but in her hands the wine cup overfills. Wine drips unto her skin, golden and warm, and Renzu drinks and drinks until the fateful moment when the ceremony is interrupted. Shinra’s face is wet with tears as he cries into the wine cup, feeling Renzu’s emotions as though they’re his own. She’s confused, alone, discarded when her body gets up without her and lives a life with only half a soul. Shinra doesn’t know this girl, this version of his grandmother he’s never gotten the chance to know, but she knows him. She loves him even when he couldn’t see her for most of his life.

Shinra doesn’t think to cry any tears for himself. It’s not until he, Renzu, and Ginko have returned home that Shinra thinks of what those mushi told his grandmother. Ginko sits down onto the porch just as he had the day before and accepts Shinra’s homemade fruit wine with a smile while Shinra fiddles with his cup. He sits down closer to Ginko than he had before, feeling more familiar with this man after everything that’s happened.

“I didn’t know mushi had a king,” Shinra says, taking a sip of his wine. It’s nothing compared to the taste of the light wine, but Shinra needs something to ground him, not something to envelop him even further into the mushi world. It helps to have something familiar as he faces the fact that, “The mushi at the banquet didn’t mean adoption, did they?”

“No, I’m quite certain they didn’t,” Ginko replies, turning his gaze from the sunset to Shinra. His white hair covers one of his eyes, but the other is an unearthly green that makes Shinra think his own eyes are so plain in comparison. “Once in a great while, the mushi circle receives a vision of the future, and that is what happened in this case. They saw the king together with his other half, happy and prosperous.”

Shinra doesn’t know what to say to that. “I’m a boy,” he says, in case Ginko and those mushi in the memory hadn’t noticed. “I can’t marry a king.” He swings his feet up and down as he tries to understand. Mushi are strange, odd things. It could be that this king is the same. “It’s been decades. Maybe he’s changed his mind by now. Or maybe he’ll change his mind after he meets me.”

“After meeting you?” Ginko huffs. “Meeting you wouldn’t be a deterrent. The opposite, actually.”

Shinra scrunches up his face at that. “Meeting _him_ will be a deterrent. Have you met the king?” Shinra asks. Ginko is a mushishi and has traveled far, after all. “What is he like? What does he do?” _Is he nice? Is he a cruel fairy tale king? Is he old?_ Of course he’s old, Shinra thinks, sighing. _So_ old. “How can mushi have a king, anyway?”

“It is said that long ago, a two humans swam in the river of light and came out different, more mushi than human, more god than mushi. They were granted special powers and given the task of keeping a balance between the mushi and human realms. Over time, their family grew, as did the royal court made up of humans and mushi and those in between. It sits in the realm between the worlds on the banks of the river of light. Some kings grew lazy and greedy, ignoring the problems of the losing sight of their true purpose. Just as the river gave, it took away, and they were punished for their folly. The king who occupies the throne today rarely sits in it, often disappearing to quell disputes in the human realm,” Ginko tells him. In that moment, it feels like Ginko knows all the secrets of the universe, despite the fact that Shinra knows he’s just a man.

“He goes alone?” Shinra asks.

“It is easiest that way.”

“That sounds lonely.” Shinra doesn’t like him, this strange mushi king, but he can’t help the thought that maybe the king does need a wife or a consort who can travel with him. A beautiful one who’s older and definitely not Shinra, that is.

“It is,” Ginko agrees, his words far away. He’s much closer to home when he looks at Shinra with fondness. “It sounds strange and new to you now, but I think you’ll like him.”

Shinra frowns. Ginko is nice and knows so many things, but he doesn’t know Shinra’s heart. “What if I don’t want to?”

Ginko’s voice is light as he says, “Do you have someone else in mind, mm?”

“Of course not,” Shinra quickly says. “Who would I have all the way out here? But just because I don’t have anyone else doesn’t mean I want the king. I didn’t even think I’d ever marry. Not with how careful I have to be about my power.”

“You wouldn’t have to be careful with him.”

“Maybe I can draw some monsters that can scare him off,” Shinra grumbles.

Ginko laughs, but it’s a nice laugh, and Shinra smiles at the picture in his head of an old king running away from a painted dragon. Even so, he knows it can’t be that easy.

“You’re young yet,” Ginko says. He reaches out and smoothes the wrinkle of worry on Shinra’s forehead with his thumb. Shinra feels the impulse to both lean in and back away. It’s been so long since anyone has touched him that the gesture unsettles him, but at the same time, he wants more. But within seconds, Ginko’s hand is gone again. “You have nothing to worry about for a few years more. For now, grow. Explore your powers under your grandmother’s watchful gaze. Don’t bother yourself with worry over something outside your control. When the time comes, you may refuse the king, but all I ask is that you give this a chance.”

“That’s easy to say,” Shinra sighs, but he knows Ginko is right. The future looms like clouds of rain, but it’s been sunny all season, and will be for a while more. In the meantime… “You could distract me with stories of your travels.”

“Could I?” Ginko says, amused.

“As the unwilling future consort, I order you to,” Shinra tells him. It’s too soon to joke, the words burrowing uncomfortably under his skin, but Shinra says it anyway. He’s lived with his grandmother’s death and with his loneliness. Somehow, he’ll live with this too.

 

*

 

Ginko leaves without saying goodbye, taking payment only in the form of the green wine cup. Shinra feels a pang of disappointment at the loss of his company, but he’ll never be lonely again with his grandmother’s spirit around. Renzu chases all the other mushi from the house, grumbling about pests and telling him to clean the kitchen better. She’s not quite his grandmother—too spirited, too young—but he loves her as he had his grandmother. It’s great to have a part of her back in this world even if he’s never known this particular part of her. Shinra had been comfortable with only his own company for years, but it’s nice to have someone to talk to. He’d gotten tired of talking to the other mushi and never hearing a reply.

There’s a village a two day’s walk away that he visits to receive mail and buy things he can’t make himself, but he only goes there in a rare while. There is never much need. Between his left hand, which he’s begun to practice with now after Ginko’s encouragement and Renzu’s ability to track down escaped ink beings, and a little hard work, he has all he needs. The land surrounding his home is more fertile than it has any right to be, which Shinra realizes only in the months following Ginko’s visit. The ground has been blessed by the river of light for the same reason that Renzu has been able to stay with him: he’s the mushi king’s future consort. Shinra takes the knowledge in stride since there’s little else he can do until the mushi king appears. Until then, he won’t give up the bountiful mushrooms and fruit trees in the forest and the vegetable he plants in his garden.

Shinra keeps a lookout for Ginko as the years pass—in fact, one of his most lifelike creations is a bird whose job it is to alert him of anyone nearing his home—but he accepts that the older man has a life of his own. His curiosity over Ginko doesn’t fade, but it settles in the back of his mind next to the knowledge that one day the mushi king will come. Neither of those facts affect his day to day life much.

He was already taller than Renzu when she appeared to him in her ghostly state, but he grows taller still. His body changes on him in odd ways, ones he doesn’t speak to his grandmother of out of embarrassment and demands privacy in his room. Renzu laughs at the way his voice cracks, but she’s oblivious to the times Shinra awakens with his length hard and aching as his dreams slip away from him. In his late father’s office, he finds a text on the human body, but the dry words don’t measure up to the awkwardness he often feels.

Shamefully, it is Ginko he often thinks of when he slides his hand under his clothes. Under the veil of darkness, he lets himself wonder what it would be like to lay with Ginko or the mushi king, what it would be like to be touched by a hand other than his own. He strokes himself with his left hand, the one that creates life, though the seed that spills from him is a very different sort of way to create life. A king’s parter should give the king children, shouldn’t they? But Shinra is neither woman nor queen. He thinks the king could ask him to paint their children with his left hand, but Shinra can’t imagine himself painting something so complex as a human being.

As he grows older, the future weighs on him more. One day, he really will wed the mushi king or find away to escape from this man who is intent on marrying him.

His future doesn’t stop him from looking around the next time he and Renzu visit the neighboring village. He sits against a tree and accepts the apple that the branches lean down to give him. Renzu, invisible to all but him, sits cross-legged next to him.

“The mushi king should choose someone like her,” Shinra says, nodding at a pretty young woman crossing to the other side of the village with a basket in her hands. Beside her is a young man, handsome enough to make Shinra blush if the sun hadn’t already coated his cheeks red. “Or him. He’s very handsome, isn’t he?”

“Too handsome,” Renzu huffs. “I don’t trust him.”

Shinra laughs at her expression. “We don’t have to trust him. I can look, can’t I?”

“For now,” Renzu agrees. She’s pensive for a long moment, her expression too old for her youthful face. “If he won’t listen, I will help you escape if you wish it, my darling grandson, but I don’t know where we can run.”

Shinra rests his chin on his knees, watching the mushi floating through the air instead of the lovely couple. “Maybe I could be happy with him, this mushi king. Ginko never said anything bad about him.”

“Ginko is a wandering mushishi—and a thief.”

Shinra laughs at that. Renzu never will forgive the loss of her wine cup, but Shinra doesn’t mind. Ginko gave him back his grandmother. Shinra could never think badly of him. He can’t even stop himself from thinking well of Ginko. Too well, in fact, since despite the occasional glimpses and conversations he’s had with other humans, it’s usually Ginko to whom Shinra’s thoughts turn in the night. Ginko, who showed up out of nowhere and enchanted him with the marvels of the mushi and human realms. Ginko, who encouraged him to use his power and thought his skill was amazing.

Still, as they stand to return home, Shinra looks back at the young man and wonders.

 

*

 

Ginko arrives the next day.

Shinra’s sentry bird creation warns him when Ginko is an hour away from the house. Shinra scrambles up and runs off to greet him, while Renzu stays back. She doesn’t find Ginko as interesting as Shinra does, which Shinra thinks is absurd. Ginko is the most interesting person he’s ever met.

“Ginko!” Shinra calls once he finally sees Ginko walking along the forest path. He doesn’t even try to keep the delight he feels from his face, especially when Ginko’s lips curl up in a smile just for him.

“You’ve grown, Shinra,” Ginko replies, holding his hands out in a gesture Shinra has only seen other people do. He walks into Ginko’s embrace, no longer as short as he had been years ago but still not up to Ginko’s height. Ginko’s body is warm against his, and so is his voice as he says, “I won’t ask if you still remember me.”

Shinra forces himself to pull away before Ginko thinks the hug has gone on too long. “Of course I remember you. You’re the thief who stole my grandmother’s wine cup!”

Ginko is utterly unrepentant. “Oh? I don’t remember anything like that, but I do have some other memories I’d be happy to share in exchange for a meal.”

“Just one meal?” Shinra asks. It’s only midday.

“Maybe two,” Ginko indulges.

They take much longer to arrive back at the house than it had taken Shinra to run to Ginko, walking slowly and catching up. Shinra doesn’t think his life is particularly interesting, but Ginko asks about everything anyway. He asks after Shinra’s garden, about how Renzu has settled in as a mushi, if Shinra’s drawing skills have improved over the years. Shinra tells him of the year’s harvest, of treating Renzu as both a grandmother and a little sister, of the way he’s learned to draw something with his right had first, erasing and redrawing until he gets it right, then tracing it over confidently with his left. Ginko stays for lunch and for tea, for dinner and for wine. He talks of faraway villages, benign and malevolent mushishi, diplomacy and fast escapes. Ginko’s life sounds lonely even when he speaks of the people he meets. Shinra imagines himself traveling with him, missing parts of a story completely as he daydreams.

“Have you ever met anyone like me?” Shinra asks him at some point.

“There is no one like you in existence,” Ginko tells him. It sounds like a promise instead of a confirmation.

Shinra had thought the evidence of the passage of time would dim his fanciful thoughts, but Ginko is exactly the same, down to the pick between his lips and the way he always does what he wants, unfettered by politeness or embarrassment. Shinra in turn blushes over Ginko’s compliments, the skin from his cheeks to his ears heating when Ginko reaches over to trail his fingers through Shinra’s hair.

“You could grow it out more. It would look even lovelier than now. I think your king would appreciate it,” Ginko teases.

“He’s _the_ king, not _my_ king,” Shinra huffs.

“You won’t do it for me, either?”

Shinra shivers, unable to stop the motion, but Ginko doesn’t remark on it. When his hand reaches the back of Shinra’s head, he brings it forward again. It takes a few strokes for Shinra to settle into the motion. He imagines how it could be if his hair were longer now. Ginko’s strokes lengthier, even more appreciative.

“Maybe,” Shinra says. “If you’d like it.”

Their conversation continues well into the night. Shinra rests slumped against Ginko’s side as Ginko tells him stories of the world beyond the forest. He doesn’t want to admit he’s sleepy because he knows Ginko will be gone in the morning, his visit like a wonderful dream that Shinra will be forced to wake up from. Ginko’s voice is softer now in the dark of night, his tales sadder than the nice ones he’d shared during the day. He tells Shinra of his failures after the tales of his successes, and Shinra yawns through his attempts to comfort his friend. Ginko helps him into one of the futons Shinra had earlier unrolled near the doors of his home, shameless in his want to be near Ginko for a little longer. He’s asleep by the time Ginko lets him go.

Footsteps on the wooden floors rustle Shinra from deep sleep, but he doesn’t wake completely. “Leaving again,” he grumbles sleepily, not opening his eyes.

“One last time,” Ginko says, his voice soft in the pre-dawn darkness.

Later, Shinra will take it to mean that Ginko isn’t going to come back, but for now the words don’t penetrate through the fog of his slumber. He murmurs something unintelligible and Ginko’s name. The floorboards creak beside him and a shadow is cast over Shinra as Ginko presses a kiss to his forehead before he leaves. Shinra tilts into the kiss, too sleepy to be embarrassed, but Ginko’s lips don’t travel any further down.

 

*

 

Mushi begin to show up in his forest, all curious and attuned to Shinra’s presence. They don’t interact with him, but they watch him, and Shinra wonders what they see. He’s not a future consort. He’s just a young man who draws and gardens and chases after his grandmother. He isn’t ruler material. He’s just Shinra. But Shinra takes them as a sign that soon the king will come for him.

These days, he’s a man grown and old enough to marry. In his idle moments, Shinra draws with his right hand what he thinks the king might look like. Sometimes he’s a monstrous figure with big teeth, sometimes a leaflike floating mushi, sometimes just a man, but an ancient one. He grows his hair out in rebellion for a man who isn’t the king, only thinking of how his heart races when he thinks of Ginko.

But Ginko wouldn’t go against the king, Shinra thinks, and that is that. Ginko has never tried to dissuade Shinra from going through with the marriage. Ginko has never struck Shinra as a coward or someone who won’t go after what he wants, so Shinra can only conclude that Shinra isn’t who Ginko wants. If Ginko wants anyone at all, that is, since Ginko has never mentioned any relationships of his own, past or present. It’s disappointing but expected, so Shinra tries not to dwell too much on it. He’s spent more time with Ginko than he has with anyone else except his grandmother, but that time amounts to a grand total of a few days. To Shinra, who meets so few people, those few days are precious. To Ginko, who meets far more… Well, Shinra doesn’t consider himself special in that regard. His power is unique and one day he might be married to a king, but other than that, Shinra can’t think of a reason for Ginko to want him.

It’s enough reason to put those silly thoughts out of his mind, but his heart doesn’t work that way.

Shinra wakes on a late spring day to mushi gathered all around his home. There’s a palatable energy in the air, as though the river of light is just beyond a paper-thin veil. When he looks outside, all his plants seem to have gained a foot in height.

“Looks like it’s time,” he muses, poking at one of the mushi. It waves back it him.

He eats breakfast with Renzu and spends the day trying to decide if he really should draw a dragon to scare off the king. He’s had a lot of practice; it could be a very fearsome dragon indeed. And yet, some part of Shinra wonders if him being the king’s other half means that the king will suit Shinra perfectly. Shinra can’t deny that he’s grown lonely again with only Renzu and the mushi as company. All he knows of the king is that he is intent on marrying Shinra yet staying absent from him, but perhaps Shinra could grow to like him. Perhaps even love him. When he says as much to Renzu, she hums in agreement.

“My own marriage was arranged by my parents,” she says to him, looking conflicted. “Or rather, the half of me who stayed human. She grew to love him, as short as their marriage was before he passed, but he was of the same class as her rather than a king.”

Shinra nods. “If he isn’t cruel, I could grow to love him, I think.” He has a lot of love to give.

“And if he is?”

“I’ll paint a thousand dragons if I have to,” Shinra tells her, determination filling his voice. His chin is high, his mouth set in a line that could take on the world.

Renzu smiles a little at that. “You look just like your mother when you get that way.”

As day turns to night, the mushi bring him one last thing: a wooden box that is deposited in Shinra’s arms. He finds a wedding kimono inside, one fit for a beautifully dressed consort, not a simple young man. His heart beats fast as he lifts the lovely thing from its box, running his hand along the sinfully soft fabric. It’s dyed in shades of red and purple, and embroidered mushi and symbols Shinra doesn’t understand. His own outfits are so simple and plain in comparison. Despite his nerves, there’s a certain excitement to dressing in something so lovely.

“Show me how to put this on?” he asks of Renzu after taking a long bath.

“Of course,” Renzu agrees.

Shinra doesn’t think he does justice to the kimono, but he tries.

When the moon is high in the sky, the mushi begin to make their way into the forest. Shinra follows them, Renzu follows him, and his home gets farther and farther away. White-cloaked mushi enter the line, hoods covering where their faces should be, while the smaller mushi disperse. Shinra finds himself unable to do anything but place one foot in front of the other, caught in this familiar but different ceremony. When the circle forms, he sees Renzu to his left, cloaked like the others now but much shorter than the other mushi.

“Our consort has finally arrived,” he hears, the words like windchimes.

“He _is_ lovely, isn’t he,” says another voice, feminine but deep.

There’s a scoff. “Human.”

“Not completely.”

They keep talking, all voicing their opinions about their future consort, but Shinra can’t tell where each voice comes from. He loses himself in the music and the words, his eyes focused only on the cloaked mushi directly opposite from him in the circle. This mushi’s cloak is the glimmering gold of light wine, a direct contrast to the white of everyone else. It must be the king, surely, and it is this mushi who takes a green wine cup from a hidden pocket and takes one sip from it. His hood is up, but Shinra can feel the king’s eyes eyes on him as he passes the wine cup.

“Shinra Ioroi, you have been invited here today to wed the mushi king, to share in his triumphs and failures, to live with him and bring him life. Drink from the cup and you will be his, as he will be yours in turn.”

Shinra ignores the cup as it gets passed down from one mushi to the next. “What if I don’t drink?”

“We would lose our chance at happiness,” the king tells him, something familiar in his voice. Its echo is booming in the crowded clearing, but its tone still sparks something in Shinra the way few voices ever have. The king’s words spark something else: anger over the secrecy, the immediacy of the wedding.

The mushi to his right places the cup in his hand before Shinra can voice his argument. Shinra recognizes the green of this wine cup and the way it resonates with his left hand as all his creations do. Half of this cup is his work, the other half formed forty-some years ago when it was given to his grandmother. Shinra would know it anywhere.

He knows the cadence of that voice, that firm way of knowing what’s best and that Shinra shouldn’t worry himself over something that’s set in stone. Moments pass. Shinra wonders what would happen if he threw the wine cup at the mushi king’s face. He would deserve it.

“Drink, Shinra,” the king tells him, his voice sounding closer, more intimate.

The king is cloaked, his figure shaped like every other mushi in the circle. Shinra doesn’t recognize his form, but he knows his voice, his touch, the press of his lips against Shinra’s forehead. He’s never hurt him even if he has lied about who he really is.

“Lower your cloak, mushi king,” Shinra says in return, his heartbeat nearly louder than his voice.

The mushi king does. Once his face is revealed, lit by the glow of the moon and the mushi all around them, his cloak flutters down and forms around a man instead of an apparition. For the first time, Shinra sees Ginko’s usually hidden eye. His iris is the exact color of the wine in Shinra’s cup. Both eyes watch him with anticipation as Shinra brings the cup to his lips and drinks. He only takes a sip, then passes the cup to Renzu.

Once the cup is in Ginko’s hands again, he says, “You have borne witness to the marriage of the mushi king and accepted Ioroi Shinra as your king’s consort.” The murmuring begins again as the mushi king tucks the cup away. “The ceremony is over. Out with you all.”

“You will return to the castle to celebrate properly, won’t you?” asks one cloaked mushi who lingers when the rest, even Renzu, vanish. “It has been too long.”

“Eventually, but for now you must leave, Nui,” Ginko says.

With a bow, the mushi does, leaving only the two of them in the clearing. They’re surrounded by all sorts of other kinds of mushi floating in the air, but those mushi aren’t on the same level as the ones in the clearing. Or, it seems, Ginko. _More mushi than human, more god than mushi,_ Shinra remembers as he rises. Ginko stays where he is, his eyes so much brighter now than they have ever been.

Shinra crosses the clearing in moments, his steps slowing as he reaches Ginko. When Shinra is close enough, Ginko reaches his hand out to take Shinra’s own hand. He brings Shinra’s knuckles to his lips, but doesn’t lower his eyes when he murmurs, “Are you angry at me?”

“It depends on your explanation,” Shinra tells him. He’s so confused, a little scared, a lot delighted to have Ginko instead of some fat old king, more annoyed that Ginko never told him.

“I never believed in fate, not like the rest of the mushi court does,” Ginko admits, still holding Shinra’s hand. His eyes are bright under the moonlight. “I came to you that long-ago day to prove to myself that I didn’t need the river of light interfering in my life. Until then, you had been a wisp of a person, a future I was so sure would never actually come to pass.”

“And then you met me,” Shinra says, his brow furrowing. “You could have left without telling me.”

“Or I could have whisked you away to the mushi kingdom,” Ginko says, his tone rueful yet serious. “I wanted to, right then and there. You are fascinating and charming and I could have stolen you without a single repercussion. Gods have so little of them, save for from the river of light, and it was that river that brought you to me.”

Shinra shivers a little at the want in Ginko’s voice. It’s something that’s never been directed at him; something he’d hoped but never planned to receive from Ginko. Shinra won’t even try to pretend it doesn’t excite him. “I would’ve hated you.”

“I know. I stayed away from you to offer you a glimpse of the life you could have if you do not choose me: human, comfortable, quiet. I don’t lead a quiet life, Shinra. I keep the balance between mushi and humans, and balance between mushi at court, and it’s noisy and messy and nothing like the life you lead now. But if you’d like it, it’s yours.” Ginko brings Shinra’s hand up again, lets his knuckles rest against Ginko’s cheek.

When Ginko lets go of Shinra’s hand, Shinra continues to keep it there. Ginko’s skin is warm, an energy not unlike that of the river of light emanating from him. “I think that’s what you told yourself you would do. Instead, you stacked the cards in your favor, allowing me years to get accustomed to the idea and appearing when it seemed like my interest might wane.”

Ginko smiles. It’s like looking into the sun, but Shinra can’t look away. “I had good intentions and impure motivations, but I won’t keep you if you don’t want to be kept. So tell me Shinra, will you chase me off with your creations?”

“I should,” Shinra tells him, but it’s hard to keep a measure of reproach in his voice. He’s never denied Ginko anything and he doesn’t plan to start now, not when this is something he wants. Ginko is who he wants, whether Ginko is a penniless mushishi or a powerful king.

Shinra removes his hand from Ginko’s cheek and watches the way worry flickers through the king’s— _his_ king’s, not because Shinra will bow to him, but because their paths in life have intertwined so thoroughly—eyes. He replaces the touch of his hand with the touch of his lips, gentle against his husband’s skin. Ginko reaches for him and Shinra smiles against his cheek, his lips, and lets his worries fall away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on tumblr as @[crownwithoutstones](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/) (new blog).


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